Arts & Culture

As the summer season approaches, it’s time for Betsey Johnson to present the world with yet another of her over-the-top and flirtatious collections. Johnson emerged onto the New York City fashion scene in the 1960s. After being the in-house designer at Manhattan boutique Paraphernalia, she opened her own boutique on…

Long before pop stars specifically set out to create a “brand image,” there were the burly, bearded guys of ZZ Top. From the late ’70s to today, even those who couldn’t name one of the band’s songs could likely recognize its signature look. Bassist Dusty Hill’s and guitarist Billy Gibbon’s…

Ages of the Moon is a one-act play set on the front porch of an obscure countryside home, where whisky shots soon lead to gunshots as two depressed men in their mid-60s sip bourbon and grumble about their weary lives while waiting up to watch a solar eclipse. The longtime…

Even before an actor moves a muscle or speaks his first lines, the audience is given a wealth of information about him, the time period, and even the setting all from what he is wearing. We might not think much about that, but it’s true. Star Trek wouldn’t seem nearly…

The Museum of Art|Fort Lauderdale is putting on a blockbuster exhibit of photography. “The Art of Caring: A Look at Life Through Photography” exhibits 200 pictures spanning 60 years. Each one is a portrait of a key moment in human life. The photos are divided into seven categories, from “disaster”…

Here in America, it’s perfectly acceptable to order a Big Mac meal with a Diet Coke. An ambulance takes longer to get to your house than a Jimmy John’s sub. And here in this gloriously free country of ours, we honor our dead soldiers with naked breasts. Stage 84 had…

After a long weekend of unholy behavior, it can be tempting to spend Sunday in your house recovering. Or in the house of God repenting. This Sunday, there is a third housing option: “The Summer of Love Part 1 House Music Festival.” Beginning at 11 a.m. and featuring 40 DJs…

The “ ’80s Prom” is a well-loved party theme: The exigencies of the ’80s aesthetic (neon, off-the-shoulder blouses, synthesizers) are all hinted at in modern pop culture, but at an ’80s Prom Party, they can explode. All proms are unabashed style showcases anyway, so if the prom is just a themed…

Bill Maher is acerbic and offensive. He’s dry and crass, and even the people who agree with him most sometimes want to slap the smug grin off his Hollywood-elite face. Before he got his first television show in 1993, by the way, he appeared occasionally on Murder She Wrote and…

The ’90s were a transitional period. We were coming down from our cocaine high in the ’80s and settling into a new world that was relatively peaceful and prosperous. President Bill Clinton’s biggest problem was keeping his wandering eye for full-figured interns in check. The nation’s biggest crisis was that…

In 1963, the critically acclaimed film Beach Party introduced the world to a new wave of cinema — beach party films! (Did the title of the movie give that away?) These beach subgenre flicks were meant to be a low-budget imitation of the Elvis Presley and Doris Day musicals and…

Saturday, more than 50 graffiti writers will descend on Fort Lauderdale and bomb cement walls until FAT Village looks like the South Bronx circa 1983. But they’re not vandals. The FAT Village Art Walk, which is held on the last Saturday of every month, will host the “New Era South…

You’re curious. It’s OK. You’ve been to a few meets now, seen some action. You find yourself asking questions. “Where do these women come from? How did they get so intense? What do they do in their spare time?” The first two are anyone’s guess. As to the third, they…

Get out your gimp suit, leash, and nipple clamps. The Fetish Factory is throwing its “16-Year Anniversary Fetish Weekend,” a celebration of kink that attracts committed pervs from around the world to the Hilton at Fort Laud’s airport and the Sheraton at 1825 Griffin Road. Friday starts in the Sheraton’s…

Though the calendar might say otherwise, true South Floridians know that summer is here. For the most part, the snowbirds have flocked home again, and we’ve run through the last waves of spring breakers. The bars have seating again, beach parking is more available, and it’s safe to go back…

Juried art shows are sort of like the O.J. Simpson trial — half the fun is in arguing about the verdict. “You thought that was Best in Show? You’re kidding.” In the case of the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood’s “Fifth All-Media Juried Biennial,” there’s plenty of outrage and…

“May you be half an hour in Heaven before the Devil knows you’re dead.” — Irish proverb On the rustic, ramshackle set of Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane, a plaque bearing this ancient line of exquisite Irish poetry hangs on the wall like a traditional blessing of the…

There is no age limit to climb from tree house to tree house inside South Florida Science Museum, which will be full of them Thursday for its “Tree House” exhibit. We know you want to be a kid sometimes. Humans never outgrow their fascinations about tree houses and who lives…